“Yes. Two,” replied Macdonald, and Ferens got up.
“I’ll go and think it over. Do you want any help here? My wife would come and sleep here, or spend the night here—if you like.”
“Thanks. That’s a very kind offer. I’ll let you know if we want assistance, but you think your patient will sleep through the night?”
“Lord, yes. She won’t stir. Incidentally, you realise she’ll probably have forgotten the whole incident when she wakes up. It happens, you know.”
“Yes. I realise that,” replied Macdonald.
3
After Ferens had gone, Macdonald went up to Hannah Barrow’s bedroom. The latter was fast asleep, her wrinkled face framed now by two stiff little plaits of grey hair, her knobbly hands lying still and decorous on the grey blanket. Emma Higson was sitting beside her, snivelling miserably into a large handkerchief.
Macdonald stood at the door and spoke very quietly. “Come downstairs now, Mrs. Higson. Hannah will be all right. She’s sleeping quite peacefully.”
The stout body got up and tip-toed painfully across the room. “Is her going to die?”
“No. She’ll be perfectly all right in the morning. It was only that she got excited and upset. It’s been a big strain for both of you, I know that. Come downstairs. I want to ask you one or two things.”
He led the way to the office, but Emma Higson drew back. “Not in there. I couldn’t abide that. Gives me the ’orrors.”
“Very well. We’ll sit in the kitchen. Make yourself a cup of tea, and give me one, too.”
Emma looked at him in surprise, but her face brightened up. “So I will. Never knew a man that wasn’t ready for a cup o’ tea when things was troublesome. Are you sure her’ll be all right up there?”
“Yes. I’ll lock the front door and close those windows. You go and put your kettle on.”
A few minutes later, Macdonald was sitting at the well-scrubbed kitchen table with a tea pot between himself and the cook. After she had had her cup of tea, he said:
“Cook, I’m not going to ask you anything that need worry you. It’s nothing about Hannah. I want you to tell me exactly what happened when Miss Torrington slipped on the stairs.”
“Her come over dizzy, poor soul,” began Cook, inevitably.
“What time was it, and what day of the week?”
“Sunday, ’twas. The Sunday before her was took. Just after dinner, two o’clock, maybe. I’d just a-done scouring my pans.”
“Then you were in here, in the kitchen?”
“In the scullery, there. Dot and Alice was just a-tidying of themselves after washing up. Sakes, the noise it made! I thought the roof had a-fallen in.” Cook was getting into her stride now. “I ran out into hall. Right down her’d fallen, and her was sitting on bottom stair, and Hannah was there with her.”
“Did Miss Torrington look ill?”
“Her looked queer like, not herself, and I don’t wonder at it. Her had fallen down the whole flight and them stairs is perishing steep. Doctor, him said time and again those stairs’d be the death of him. Didn’t hold with all that polish.”
“Was Miss Torrington very white in the face after her fall?”
“No, that she wasn’t. Her face was red like. I know it came into me mind she’d had a seizure, but ’twasn’t that. Her got up all right and her said: ‘I’m not hurt, Cook, so do you go back to your work,’ and her leant a bit on Hannah’s shoulder and went into the office, and at tea-time her was all right again.”
“That was the second time she fell, wasn’t it? What about the first time?” asked Macdonald.
“That’d’ve been the Friday, two days before. ’Twas after breakfast: the children had been upstairs and Sister had given they their cod-liver oil and then they all went out into garden. Dot and Alice was a-sweeping of the dining-room and Hannah was doing the dispensary. Sister had been to wash her hands in the bathroom, and her fell down in the passage upstairs. Her said that time that ’twas summat on the floor—maybe the children had been throwing the soap about. I said: ‘Better have doctor, Sister. That’s a shock that is, and we’re none of us so young as us once was,’ but her wouldn’t hear of it. Her sent Hannah for the ammonia stuff Sister keeps in her bag, Sal…whatever that be.”
“Sal Volatile?”
“That be it. Very powerful that be. Sister gave that to me once when I caught my finger in mangle and come over queer, and it didn’t half make I cough, but ’tis good, indeed. And Hannah did count it out in drops like Sister did say and that pulled her together. Though her did go and lie on her bed awhiles, and that’s the first time I ever did know Sister to lie down. Her hadn’t no patience with ’uman frailties.”
“Dr. Brown tells me that Miss Torrington has always had very good health, but he thought she had been failing of recent months. Did you notice any sign of illness in her apart from the two times she fell down? Was she ever uncertain in her movements, or confused in mind, or in her speech?”
“That her wasn’t,” declared Cook. “Between you and me, sir, Sister was a tartar in a manner of speech. Very noticing, her was, and as for speech, her were as clear as yourself, and a sight sharper with it if so be anything wasn’t just so. And when her moved, her was neat as a cat, and as quiet. Very upright Sister was. Real old-fashioned, with a back like a ramrod.” She paused a moment, cogitating deeply. “Her was never one to ask for sympathy, and if so be her wasn’t feeling so good, her’d never say so. Maybe her had a bit of stomach trouble, because her cared less and less for her food. Her’d never been a big eater, but lately her did only peck at her food. Hannah marked that. ‘Sister’s not eating,’
